The CREaTIoNist

In any English Medium school in Pakistan - be it the one that people are almost dying to send their child to, or the little one on the corner of the street near your house which thinks that to be really 'acceptable' it's essential to have the word 'Saint' in its name (the one near mine is called "St. Humpty Dumpty's") - there is one common problem: Getting the children interested in reading Urdu books.

There are many reasons, of course.

For one, many parents pay more than they can afford just so their child can get a basic knowledge of English - hoping that, in later years, this will open up better job opportunities. In fact it does, both internationally and locally. So when their child starts reading English books, comics, newspapers and magazines, they feel they are getting a return on their investment and rarely notice (or purposely overlook) the almost total absence of Urdu books around their child. (I live in Karachi so I am basing this on my experience, but friends across the country tell me that books in the national and regional languages share, at best, the same fate everywhere. YMMV.)

For another, the quality of the Urdu books for each age group, though improving slowly now, is still so low in terms of print quality, paper quality, and illustrations (all of which are victims of 'the economies of scale') in comparison to their English counterparts that no child finds them attractive enough to choose from the school library.

One thing that puzzles me, though, is why the 'content', too, is so poor. While English books present adventures and situations that are contemporary and within the direct or indirect (via Films & TV) experience of the child, the Urdu books are often still stuck in another century. Why are there no Enid Blytons, Roald Dahls, J K Rowlings, Shel Silversteins, or even R L Stines? Why did things come to a halt with Toat Batoat and Paesa Library?

A few Urdu books from The Book Group - despite some flaws (I recall Anita Ghulamali fuming at the book that focused on Mohaavraas) - did raise hopes, at least through the production quality and wonderful illustrations.

Some large school systems have brought out their own series that offers shades of improvement over the run of the mill material, as do books from established publishers. But these, too, concentrate primarily on the production quality. Thoughtless editing mars several of them.

For example, instead of actively negating stereotypes - particularly of women - that do so much damage, some actually reinforce them. Often the husband is shown coming home from work in a chauffeur-driven car while children and house-wifey dear run outside to greet him - a rather atypical situation in the home of many children who go to these upper-middle-class and elite schools. In one book mom and kids in such a scenario are even shouting out, in unison, "Hamaaray liyay lya laaé?" Just a few pages later, girls are shown choosing to play with dolls, while boys choose cars ... again a strange representation, today. Stand outside many of these types of schools at drop-time and see how many women (compared to men) drive their children to school or arrive to teach there.

Nationalistic lip-service to Maadaré Millat aside, few stories, if any, are ever centred around working women - except the token nurse or someone on the periphery. This from teaching or publishing organizations that are not just filled with women on their workforce but frequently even headed by them!

Poetry, one of Urdu's greatest pleasures, receives a really rough treatment. Technically wrong lines (especially in the case of mauzooniat) are often found, as are misquoted verses. This passes through not just the Editors but also, unchecked, through Urdu teachers who do not make corrections that their English-teaching counterparts would routinely make in a similar situation in the same school. Why? Because, as products of the same Urdu-rejecting education system, they know no better!

Of course, trying to point out a mistake to the school is even worse. Either - if the teacher is vengeful, and some are - your child has to bear the brunt for having a 'finicky' parent or, if you and your child are lucky, you merely get - as I did - a stupid response.

Glancing at 6-year old Ragni's Urdu notebook I noticed that in the homework given to her a word had been written wrongly (the assignment was in the teacher's hand and a letter of the alphabet in it contained an extra 'shosha').

I sent a separate polite note to her saying that she should be a little more careful as the children would think that the 'shape' was the correct one ... to which the teacher responded that the child in question was too young to read the homework assignment and, obviously, it would be read by a parent who is expected to know the correct form and, so, there really was no problem. O-kayyy....

One problem that poor quality Urdu books (as well as poorly printed pirated English books) published here have created is that schools are hungry for any well-presented books in Urdu and Islamiyaat (the 2nd of the 3 subjects that children find boring for the way it is taught ... the third being Pak Studies.) I shan't even delve into the fact - at least in this post - that Urdu course books have turned almost entirely into 'Islamiyaat plus Pak Studies' books in an obviously failing effort at producing better Muslims or Pakistanis.

Nature abhors a vacuum and gaps are soon filled by matter ... but nature passes no judgement on the quality of the matter that fills the vacuum. Precious stones and bullshit are equally welcome as long as the volume is the same. So, in jump books from that misleading fraud, the phenomenon known as Harun Yahya. After all, they are beautifully published. The quality of the photographs is at par with the kind one sees in NatGeo (some may even have been licensed from that publication). The text is simple (even when it contains distortion or misrepresentation of facts).

The books have in-built protection: The subject is clothed in the magical world of 'beliefs', even the most stupid of which are difficult to challenge today - unless, of course, the view is that of a minority - for fear of offending some highly inflammable weirdo. (Even HY's own belief system does not escape distortion, intelligently 'covered' - at least for legal purposes - by innuendo and the kind of psychological weaknesses that all marketing exploits.) And - a boon in this age of multimedia - there are even videos (again, of very high quality) available that can supplement the text.

Teachers: Just switch them on. Switch yourselves off. Relax. No great damage will be done to the students, who, once the lights go off for 'projection', will either fall asleep or indulge in other productive activities.

So who can resist introducing these gorgeous books into schools? Or who can, at the very least, delete non-factual passages? Better still, who can encourage the students to debate them ... for 'censorship' isn't the best of ideas in a learning environment? Well, I don't know about who can, but I know who should: An 'educated' Principal or Teacher. Recently I said this to a school-owner and she said those are difficult to find. Hmmmm ... I have suggested that (since she is aware of this poor state of affairs and is, to the best of my knowledge, a decent and honest human) her school should carry a warning banner (like cigarette packets do): Beware - Teaching in this school is often done by people who don't know their subject.

Harun Yahya fans may be angered by my putting down someone so respected among people who, when confronted with specifics, have a question that always drives me up the wall: "Aap itnay deep mayñ kyooñ jaa rahay haeñ?"

For those who may not be aware of HY's "mistakes" (if one is feeling charitable) or "intentional fraudulent manipulation" (if one is willing to call a spade a spade - for it is unlikly that an author, with a veritable fundo-funded publishing industry behind him, would not have researched matters better), here's a link that should clarify why I feel so strongly against the use of these books in schools.

A more recent and frightening phenomena is the showing of his videos as in-flight entertainment. This, too, must stop ... unless, in the interest of fairness, the films are followed immediately by this video.

Any ideas?

India 4: An uncanny tale ... (Part 2 — The Conclusion)

When you have had the benefit of a 25-year stint at sea (1959-1984), there is bound to be much that is narratable and shareable, with some of it even of interest to a few people outside your immediate family. But this post is, primarily, about Gupta Cha (and his family) - so I shall make only brief references to the other parts which will be covered in greater detail in "Ships and Shoes and Sealing Wax" (if that "book+" ever gets completed).

However, as indicated at the end of my previous post, the real conclusion to the tale - which took place last year - will make up the second half of this post. The first will be spent breezing through the intervening years.

Ok, so it's 1947, the last day of September. Abi has finally received permission to extend his leave and proceed with the family to Karachi. We are to set sail on the S.S. DUMRA (of the British India Steam Navigation Co.) and are standing on a pier. There's a mad rush wherever one casts an eye. If I had known of the concept then, I would probably have thought of Maedaané Hashr. The sounds of bawling from families being separated can be heard mingling with the shrill laughter of children running everywhere, excited by the journey.

The 5 of us soon board the ship, bidding goodbye to Gupta Cha and to Badshah Chacha, who has travelled from South India to see us off. Standing with them is a close friend of my father, the amazing Dr. Baliga (one of my 'ideals' when I was a teenager), who was once invited to Pakistan to treat our Governor General, Ghulam Mohammad.

A couple of Sikh hockey players from the Bombay Sea Customs, 'fans' of Abbu Jan, have arrived to say goodbye to their Hockey Hero,
but now seem more interested in Chacha Jania (Talat Mahmood) whom they have cornered. As usual, he is too shy and polite to get away from them, though he wants to join us for parting hugs. The very moment that we start up the gangway, he runs towards us and the Sikhs shout out to all, "Yeh Talat Mahmood bhaaga jaa rahaa hae Pakistan. Roko. Roko." The laughs lighten the sad moment.

We are shown to a cabin which, though meant for 2+1, is spacious enough and the bistarband comes in handy. Soon, the ship's ropes are cast off and we move gently away from the pier. The air is suddenly filled with wave after wave of loud roars of Pakistan Zindabad and Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad. One can feel not just the passion but the freedom in those naaraas, suppressed at the pier where everyone realized that such slogans could incite riots.

Once Bombay harbour begins to fade out of sight, Abi contacts the officer who is doing the rounds to inform him that he is a doctor and available for any emergency help that the ship's team might need. An hour or so later, he is called up by the captain and, with two other doctors and a couple of nurses also travelling as passengers. They are introduced to the Ship's Medical Officer and agree to do frequent rounds and assist with any passengers needing help.

At some late hour we are woken up by Abi to meet - and accommodate, if possible - a couple trying to find a comfortable place to rest. He has found them on his very first round. The bearded husband is none other than poet Bahzaad Lakhnavi. Some of you may be familiar with Begum Akhtar's rendition of his "Deevaana Banaana Hae To ..."

Once a rangeen shaaer, Bahzaad Chacha later turned into a very prolific naat go, and now lies buried in Karachi with signs on the graveyard proclaiming his ishqé rasool. His unique tarannum was extremely popular with müshaerah audiences. The next 3 days of the journey are spent with him and Abi reciting ghazals to each other with a slowly increasing 'fan club' blocking the passageways.

The day before arrival in Karachi is my 7th birthday. Bahzaad Chacha gives me a shayr as gift. The original, in his hand, has long been lost ... but I still remember the words:

Tüm ko tohfay mayñ aur kyaa dayñ ham?

Lo nayaa mülk ... Iss mayñ phoolo phalo!

Abbu Jan gets a small temporary house somewhere near Jackson Bazaar in Keamari and, later, moves into the large Customs Flats nearby. We live with them for a few weeks while Abi - almost penniless - does the rounds in Karachi in the hope of finding a suitable job in some hospital. He does not wish to re-join the Army and has applied for release.

One day, quite by chance, Abi bumps into Swami Ji (as we always addressed him). He recognizes Abi as one of his fellow students at medical college. Abi learns that Swami Ji and two other colleagues run a charitable hospital - with free treatment for Hindus - under the Ramakrishna Mission.

They are on the verge of leaving for India, after handing over the place to GoP (as evacuee property, I guess). The stock of medicines, good for about a year, is to be thrown out since transferring them to other hospitals is considered a major task of logistics and accounting.

Abi is apalled. He says he would like to continue running the hospital, without charging the Mission, until all the medicines run out. He promises to keep it free for Hindus if the Mission agrees that the free treatment could also be extended to Muslim refugees who cannot afford to pay. They agree, but there is the Government to convince. Abi's old Aligarian friend, Mr A. T. Naqvi, now the Commissioner of Karachi, arranges for this to be formalized and, suddenly, Abi has a job which, though it carries no salary, comes - to our delightful surprise - with a small 2 room apartment on Nazareth Road (half-way between Guru Mandir and Soldier's Bazaar). We live next to the larger apartment occupied by Swami Ji and his colleagues. I am in and out of their house all day, devouring all the Idlees and Dossas and Rasm they can feed me - which explains my desire to dart off to the South Indian Sagar restaurant the moment I get to Dilli. (If you ever go there, be sure to try their almost-3-foot-long Paper Dossa.)

Diversion The Nazareth Road house is purchased the following year by a Nawab Hasan Yar Jang (nephew of the colourful Nizam of Hyderabad) and Swami Ji manages to have it written into the agreement that as long as Abi is alive he can continue to stay in that apartment, paying rent - of course. The Swamis leave in a few months. Nawab Sahab - always very civil when we encounter him in the building - shifts in with his 'lingerers on'. He gives me my favourite mithai - genuine Baadaam Ki Lauz - whenever he receives a package of it from Hyderabad. I even get to go with him and (What a treat!) sit in the Royal Stall to attend the Platinum Jubilee of Aga Khan III (grandfather of the present one), a ceremony Nawab Sahab is attending on behalf of the Nizam.

But Nawab Sahab is a stickler for words. The contract says that my father can occupy the house as long as he lives. On 18th September 1963 my ship happens to arrive in Karachi. On the 19th my father dies. (Abbu Jan and Ammi Jan are getting a house built in Iqbal Town and are temporarily staying with us, which offers Ummi and me a bit of solace, since we have all been very close, always.) The Nawab attends the funeral, comes into the house to condole with my mother, and informs me on his way out that we have to vacate the house in 48 hours! Which is what I try to do, but it takes a bit longer and needs the good offices of neighbour, ex-Mayor Khan Bahadur Gabol Sahab, to convince the Nawab. I sail away two days after our hurried shifting. This trip to Karachi has been a life-changing experience for someone only 23 years old. But let me get back on track.

Gupta Cha is in touch by mail and we receive a picture of him and Chachi soon after their wedding in 1949 or 1950. This exchange continues, off and on. When Abi dies, Ummi receives a very warm letter from them, asking "Bhabiji" to stay with them in Dilli for a while. But the trip never materializes. We couldn't afford it. Then, for some reason - possibly mail going astray after the 1965 war - we all lose touch.

For years I search for him ... but can recall neither his rank nor anything else. Whenever my ship is at an Indian port, I try to think up ways to find Gupta Cha. Trying to find a 'Gupta' in the Indian army, I am told, is just short of tracing the right 'Khan' in Afghanistan.

Zoom ahead to 1983: I am in command of a ship operated by the Gokals out of Hong Kong. The officers and crew of these ships are multinational and on my ship the Chief Engineer, Vipin Kaura, is from India. Vipin's father - a retired Army officer - comes from Dilli to visit our ship and stays there for a few days.

Soon after 'Uncle Kaura' arrives, I decide to go wish him. I plan to remember to say Aadaab in the old tradition but my Pakistani Radio Officer - a Lahori - tells me that that was not as common a greeting in Punjab as in Delhi and the U.P., so maybe I should say Namsté to be polite. I walk in and say that, a bit awkwardly, failing badly at the hand coordination for the accompanying gesture. Uncle Kaura - originally from Rawalpindi - says. "Aray ... hum to soach rahay thay keh bohat din baad Salaam Alaeküm sünnay ko milay ga ..." and soon the talk turns to his homesickness and losing touch with old friends. He regrets forgetting to write Urdu well.

During the stay I recount 'our' partition story and he asks me if there is anything I can recall about Gupta Cha that could help trace him. Apart from his first name, Birjesh, I usually can't recall anything. But from some hidden corner of my mind, that day, I bring forth two facts that I'd never consciously recalled earlier. Someone in Gupta Cha's family - possibly his father? - was a Judge. And they lived in a house called Bürj Mahal in Meerut. Before he leaves the ship and heads home, Uncle Kaura says he will ask some old colleagues about Gupta Cha but doubts if anything will come of it.

Five days later, I am standing at the Shipping Agency office when I am handed an envelope posted from Delhi, addressed to me. I open it and discover a letter in Urdu in a shaky hand. It starts "Pyaaray Baytay ...". "How sweet of Uncle Kaura," I think to myself, "to try and write in Urdu after all these years." But the next para that I read (writing this I am still feeling the same sensation as I did then) is something I cannot believe. I jump ahead and look at the bottom of the next page. YESSSSS! It says "Tümhaara Gupta Cha". It takes me an interminable amount of time to absorb this. A clerk comes up and asks if I am OK. I have tears streaming down my cheeks and can barely speak as I read about Gupta Cha thinking each year of me on my birthday, admittedly not difficult to remember in India (It's Gandhi Ji's, too!). I read and re-read the letter. He wants me to fly out to Delhi. Of course I cannot (not just because of the visa but because we sail out in 2 days).

It turns out that Uncle Kaura, immediately on his return to Delhi, took a bus to Meerut and spent the day searching for Bürj Mahal. Unsuccesful at his attempt, he stopped at a shop in a multistory building to have a cold drink before taking the bus back. The shopkeeper and he got into a conversation and he mentioned his search for Bürj Mahal. "This very building is where it used to be," said the shopkeeper, "and the old owners live right on top, I think." So up climbed Uncle Kaura and met Gupta Cha's sister-in-law and told her the tale. She recalled our family and informed Uncle Kaura that Gupta Cha lived in Delhi! Defence Colony!! One lane behind Uncle Kaura's house!!! (Yes, Woody Allen. Life does imitate bad television!). So it is to Uncle Kaura that I owe more than I had realized.

After I regain control of my senses (and I am not dramatizing this ... it did take a while, as 36 years and all that's happened in that period ran through my mind) I immediately decide to phone him. And Ummi. Getting connected to Karachi, oddly, happens very quickly but I just manage to tell her that I've found Gupta Cha when, even more quickly, the line drops and we cannot get through again. Getting through to Delhi is a 'trunk call' - as calls between cities were then known - and requires a 'booking'. "It's about a 3-4 hour wait," says the operator. The manager of the agency, who, like everyone else in that room, has heard bits of my story by then, takes the phone from me and says something in Marathi, and then translates it for me. "Maeñ saalay ko bola 'Yeh jaldi type ka call hae! Death and Illness Emergency'. Abhee das minat mayñ mil jaae ga."

Of course I can't recall the conversation with Gupta Cha. Too full of both of us trying to fill the other in about everyone and everything. Sobs. Laughter. He tells me he has two children. The son, nicknamed 'T2' is in the army. His daughter, Nanu, is married to Sunil who is in the Navy and is posted in Bombay. I am excited. "Can I see her?" Gupta Cha gives me the address of her house in the Naval Colony and, still reeling from all this, I am put on a rickshaw by the friendly clerk who first tells the driver my story and then instructs him to wait wherever I am going and bring me back later and collect the money from the office as part of the celebrations for my joy. Awwwww.

So off I go. Kinda stupidly quick response, if I'd just thought a bit. I can't even get into the Naval Colony in my own city without some identity papers. And, as a Ship Captain from Pakistan, I should not even be near an Indian Navy area. But who was thinking? In retrospect, I often shudder. Had I been arrested and charged with a Pak spy masquerading as an Indian, I'd still be in jail there, if alive. But I was not pretending about anything. I was excited and that's all that must have shown on my face. No nervousness at all. Just a stupid pasted smile of the kind that airline staff bear. The clothes, too, helped. I was in a white khaddar kurta pyjama - my usual dress code for the evenings - a common sight in Bombay, anyway. The chatty rickshaw vaala, who informed me that he was a Muslim and had relatives in Karachi, spoke to the guard when he asked where we were headed. "Aray chho∂o yaar ... 30 saal baad behen say milnay jaa rahaa hae sahab!" And we were in.

Later, I have laughed often at the thought that the Indian Naval Security services are at the same level as ours - recalling that in the 60s, when we docked in Karachi with ammunition that our ship had brought in from Iran, the whole port area was under security and passes were required to board the craft. Not even our own officers could step onto the quay and board the ship again without passes. Sitting in my room, I nearly leapt out of my chair as I saw an old friend from India walk in. "How the eff did you get on board? It's bloody tight security!" ... Bhagwan Das winked and said, "Full Paanch rupyah diya gate vaalay ko, yaar!"

The meeting with Sunil and Nanu was great. It was like being at home with people I'd always known. No takallüf. They already knew of me. Their elder daughter, Ayeshah, (named by Gupta Cha) fell asleep soon but I did get to carry around the new addition, 4-month old Amrita, after eating a lovely home-cooked meal, so that Nanu could eat in peace. I wish the ship would have stayed longer so I'd have got to spend more time with them.

For a year or so Nanu and I managed to stay in occasional contact, but Sunil was then posted to Vishikhapatnam, I think, and none my letters ever reached them, so we lost touch. Gupta Cha and I wrote to each other often and I phoned him from several ports - Hong Kong, Singapore, from wherever I could dial direct. He and Ummi, too, exchanged a few letters (in Urdu!). He was insistent that I hop across the border and stay with him for a few days. "I have a room reserved for you", he'd always tell me. But visas were an impossibility for me then.

I returned to Karachi in late March 1986 and Ummi told me that Gupta Cha had passed away just a couple of days earlier. Fate's cruel joke... to have found him after years and never met him! I spoke to Chachi on the phone. There was less to say except in silence.

Some time later, I received a call from "T2", whom I had not been in any kind of contact with. His addressing me as "Bhaisaahab" seemed so strange.

He told me they were letting go of the house and he was taking Chachi along to wherever he was posted then. Chachi came on the line - and in one of the most touching moments for me in this strange saga - asked me if it would be possible, before they left the house, to come and stay a day or two in the room that Gupta Cha had earmarked for me. I tried but I could not get the NOC needed for a visa. (Although I had left the sea - swallowing the anchor soon after Ragni's birth and Ummi's accident that confined her to a wheelchair - and started a company of my own, my passport still showed Merchant Seaman as my profession, so our Ministry had to issue NOCs.)

I never managed to contact T2 and Nanu again. Uncle Kaura, too, passed away before I could find out the address from where, maybe, I could get a forwarding address they'd left behind. On my next trip to Delhi I told Vipin about trying to find T2 and, together, we called up several Guptas, none of whom could help. I discussed with Tarun (of Tehelka) the possibility of an ad in his paper looking for these people but we never got around to it.

Fast Forward: It's late 2007. I am sitting at T2F in Karachi and get a call from a Pakistani Merchant Ship Captain, some years junior to me. We don't really know each other. He is writing a book about our Merchant Navy and wants any photos that I may have which could be used. Then he says, "I was in Bombay last week at a meeting and there was someone who wanted to get in touch with you. I promised to trace your numbers and send them to him." I imagine it's one of my many Indian fellow seafarers from the NOL (Singapore) or GESL (Hong Kong) days. But it turns out that it's someone from the Indian Navy.

"SUNIL?" I almost shout the question. "Yes." It's just too crazy! I get Sunil's number and call him up. Later, I speak with Nanu. I learn that Chachi is no more. None of us ever got to meet her :-( Then I get a Delhi number and call T2, whom I'd searched for as a Major? Colonel? Something Gupta. In all the years I was in contact with the Gupta family, no one had ever mentioned T2's full name! Turns out he is Pradeep Kumar. Chalo. And he's been living in Delhi for a few years (during many of which I've been visiting the place often, even for long periods).

Much as I wanted to, I could not attend T2's son (and my fellow Merchant Navy Officer) Abhimanyu's wedding in Jaipur, where Ashmita's family live. Just a few days earlier that city had suffered from bomb blasts (obviously, the blame was laid at our doorstep, as is customary) so getting a visa to that city was out of the question.

Things are getting better. T2 met Ragni in Dhaka during a business trip. I met him and his wife, Ruby, when I stopped over in Delhi en route to Kolkota for a meeting. Sunil flew over from Mumbai and we had dinner together. Nanu, I hope, will be able to come to Delhi the next time I am there (hopefully in the last week of the next month). And I am dying to see the kids all grown up.


If ever there could be a suitable postscript to all this, it's this email I received just a while ago.

Peace!

India 3: An uncanny tale ... (Part 1 — The Rather Long Preamble)

Rewind to late-1944 to 1945 (give or take 6 months ... for I am just guessing). The Second World War is in full swing. My father, a doctor, has had to enroll in the Army. The three of us - Abi, Ummi, and I - are constantly on the move from camp to camp.

Abi's short postings take us into cantonments from Jhansi to Campbellpur - places now in two different countries but made famous by their queens - and several others towns I can only vaguely recall. For some details, however, my memory is almost photographic: I can recall every face at our table - even the orange floral pattern on the sari Ummi was wearing - when the cook, Salamat, came running in to warn us that Sultana Daku was about to attack. Of course, like most things associated with Salamat, it turned out to be a figment of his opium-inspired imagination. I guess why I haven't forgotten the incident is because I have been forever chided for asking "Will he sign my autograph book?"

I am 4+ years old and always the only child at all of these places, as far as I can recall. (Wish I had asked my parents why that was so ... for it does seem odd to me now.) This lack of peers makes me spend most of my time around the same things that the grown-ups around me enjoy: books, magazines, music, poetry ... and sitting with them, trying to make sense of their discussions.

Travelling with us everywhere, among Abi's uniforms, Ummi's saris & ghararaas, my favourite embroidered chikan kurtaas (and my own uniform) is my box of Meccanos #0/#1 and a small crate of Abi-Ummi's books. Apart from Ummi's stack of Ismat issues and Kohé Qaaf Kay Peechhay - a book of children's stories from which she read to me - I can recall 4 of them even 60+ years later: There is a Deevaané Ghalib, for which my mother has made a slipcase in papier-maché and decorated with dried leaves. On one large leaf is her attempt at a pen-sketch of Ghalib that she is very proud of, until one of Abi's colleagues assumes the sketch to be Jesus. (He thinks the book is an Urdu translation of the Bible and is being kept, like Qurãns, in a jüzdaan). The other books are Palgrave's Golden Treasury, Feroze-ul-Lughaat (Farsi), and a Platts' Dictionary that was gifted to Abi by someone at one of the camps. The latter 2 are still with me :-)

My lifelong habit of travelling heavy is obviously inherited from my parents, for there is also another 'essential' and much cared-for set of items that weigh a ton and go everywhere with us: A black trunk that contains an HMV wind-up gramophone and a small music 'collection' (78 RPM records), neatly stored in 2 metal boxes, painted dark green. Inscribed on them in white paint: WEST; EAST. The first holds some records by Caruso, Gigli, Chaliapain, McCormack, and Debussy's Claire De Lune by someone. Imagine how often I must have heard all these names to be familiar with them at that age! The second, a bigger box, is populated by our own classical music's demi-gods: Fayyaz Khan, Karim Khan, Bai Kesarbai, Omkarnath Thakur, Enayat Khan. It also has a thin balsa wood partition that keeps these giants segregated from mere mortals who sing "light pieces": K. L. Saigal*, Akhtari Bai, Kamla Jharia. There's even a Talat Mahmood (his very first: Sab Din Ayk Samaan Naheeñ Tha) - included, I suspect, more because of Abi's almost-paternal love for his younger cousin than for the song. (Ummi enjoyed the song, but it just wasn't on my father's musical hot-list ... although he got all teary-eyed and mushy whenever we played it!)

At one or two camps, where we stayed relatively longer, Abi made friends with a few people equally interested in English literature, Urdu shaaeri, and music. The well-known humourist, Dr. Shafiq-ur-Rahman, was my father's junior at one camp and was always a barrel of fun when he came over, with my mother and others teasing him about some new nurse or the other he would fall for on a fortnightly basis. (This, I narrate not as much from memory as from tales retold.) Shafiq chacha and my father had everyone rolling with laughter as they used crazy words, such as Posheedah Ghünchee for Chhipkalee). There were humourous verses, too, a few of which, including a ghazal with a funny qaafiah ("ch, ch" = "tsk, tsk" - by Abi) appear in Shafiq Chacha's book, Lahrayñ. This scanned image of three of its couplets is from Abi's bayaaz.

Three other people who stayed in touch over the years were Khan Chacha, Badshah Chacha, & Gupta Chacha. The first two came to Pakistan and our family ties continued beyond their deaths and those of my father and mother. Sadly, Badshah Chacha (whose eldest son laughingly claims to have been conceived at our house) died very early. Khan Chacha was around for quite a while and continued visiting Ummi and me regularly after my father passed away in 1963. Despite the fact that these two chachaas were part of my life as I grew up in Karachi - and were extremely affectionate and caring - it was "Gupta Cha", left behind in India, whom I inexplicably missed most.

Fast Forward: It's January 1946. The war has been over for months. We are in Delhi, where Abi has rented a space and set up a small clinic, which he hopes to expand. He has asked for a release from the Army and is waiting for it to arrive. Ummi is busy all day, putting together crockery and stationery, even embroidering a floral K on new bed-sheets and pillow-covers for the 2-bed 'overnight hospital' they hope to build in the small space behind the clinic some day.

Our flat above the clinic is small but frequently filled with poets and writers, because Abi is the Joint Secretary of Anjumané Taraqqiyé Urdu. (The other 'joint' being a young Jamiluddin Aali). I have vague memories of Ustaads like Jigar and Seemaab on one or two occasions and a clearer one - from what may have been the last week in that house - of a very young Habib Jalib, whom I remember because of his beautiful voice, long hair, and the super-shiny :-) white sharkskin shervaani.

We are just beginning to settle down but Abi is suddenly asked to report for another year and is shunted off to medical camps in Baghdad, Cairo, and Jerusalem. Keen on Biblical History - it is from him, again, that I get my passion for it - these postings thrill him as he visits hundreds of legendary sites. Take a look at a picture of Jesus's traditionally claimed birthplace from Abi's album.

Abi even visits Karachi during his to-ing and fro-ing and is impressed by what was then a lovely, friendly and exremely clean city. Here's a view that I also found in his album of Elphinstone Street (now Zebunnisaa Street, named - oddly, methinks - after the daughter that King Aurangzeb kept imprisoned for years***). Times change! The city has changed in every conceivable and inconceivable way, but I still love it, madly!

The air in our Dilli house is beginning to fill with the talk of Pakistan. My mother's cousin, Ziauddin Kirmani (ZDK) is constantly heard arguing for the Muslim League, while my father and a few of his politically active Congress-supporting friends argue for a united India.

Interesting factoid: ZDK edited and published, from Lucknow, a paper called Pakistan ... well before the name was coined for this country. Later, he also authored a biography of the Prophet, The Last Messenger with a Lasting Message - An Unconventional Study (recently re-published by his son, Tariq, and available at T2F). I'd strongly recommend it to those looking for a fresh approach, interesting references related to early Islamic history, and succinct biographical sketches of the Prophet's contemporaries ... but I must warn readers that certain sects have been upset about a couple of portrayals. The book is intriguingly dedicated "to those who seek the truth and are prepared to face it".

Soon, my father leaves for his new posting, packing Ummi and me off to to my maternal aunt in Calcutta, where her husband works for the Sea Customs. Also in Calcutta (now Kolkota) lives my paternal grandfather (of whom everyone I know is scared to death) ... more about him in some other post ... so it is a treat for all of us that my uncle is soon posted to Budge-Budge (now Baj-Baj), an oil pier 2o miles up the Hooghly. The distance from central Calcutta, though short, is mercifully not entirely conducive to my grandpa dropping in too frequently.

1947 arrives with bloodshed and riots in Calcutta, turning the Hooghly occasionally pink. My only playmate - Sattar, a family servant's child brought up by my aunt and just a bit older than I - spot a body or two floating up-river with the tide. We even have a rather gruesome encounter with a severed head, once.

My uncle, Asad Ali, and his close friend and neighbour, Shaukat Chacha, are employed in the Sea Customs because of their hockey prowess. They talk each day about how close "we" are to attaining Pakistan. My uncle and aunt are extremely fond of me. They have no child of their own and are like my second-set of parents. I even call them Ammi Jaan and Abbu Jaan, titles generally used to address one's own parents. In contrast to my parents, they are such fanatical Muslim Leaguers, they even alter my name. Not legally, of course, thank goodness. But in my books and notepads I am made to write Mohammad Zaheer Alam Kidvai Jinnahi! One of these books I still own: It is Vol. 2 of Hafeez Jallandhari's Shaahnaamaé Islam, which I used to once recite full throatedly to anyone who'd listen, thrilled at the descriptions of the bloody battles and the 'heroic' deeds of the early Muslims. Until I grew up ...

It's August 1947, now. Pakistan is a reality. Where we are is relatively safe but from conversations and the BBC news over the radio we hear that things are bad everywhere. Our family has to move out and head to Bombay from where we are to travel to Karachi, since Abbu Jan has 'opted' for West Pakistan. I suspect that the decision to not move to East Pakistan - so much closer to Calcutta and an obviously easier/safer move - was taken partly because my grandpa was migrating to Dhaka ;-) (Did I forget to tell you that my daada was also Abbu Jan's elder brother? Not too confusing a relationship, actually. Just a case of an uncle and a nephew, only 6 years apart, marrying 2 sisters!) 

Abi is to meet us in Bombay and take us 'home', to Delhi, while the others sail away to Karachi. I can hardly wait to get 'home'.

The long journey takes us through three train changes and a circuitous route which, for the life of me, I cannot recall. On the last leg of the journey we are told that, now, there are riots everywhere and trains are being stopped and attacked. People are being killed by one or the other party, depending upon your religion and theirs, casting aside the veneers of pretense about professed humaneness and love that followers on both sides boast incessantly about in less challenging times. I guess in order to not scare me and 2 other slightly older kids in the compartments the elders don't talk about any of this much. Or about anything. Their silence - specially that of Ummi and Ammi Jan, generally non-stop talkers :-) seems eveb scarier to Sattar and me.

At one station we have a surprise in store: A uniformed, beaming-as-always Gupta Cha bounds into the carriage and travels with us all the way to Bombay. At one point - when the train is stopped by a Hindu mob - he leans out of the window and announces that he and his large family travelling with him are Hindus and the only occupants of that compartment. Uniforms didn't get questioned, even then!

Allow me to digress, but this reminds me of a joke that became popular at the time of Ayub Khan's 1958 Martial Law. A man standing at the Indo-Pak border sees a horde of rabbits scurrying across to the Indian side from ours. He manages to stop and grab an old hobbling rabbit and asks him what they are running away from. Desperately trying to wiggle out of the man's grasp, the old rabbit says that the Pakistan Army has ordered the capture of all horses for its use. "But you're a rabbit", says the man. "Yeah. But ...", says the squirming rabbit, "have you ever tried to argue with a soldier?"

The other family in the compartment, obviously Muslim (one of the women has been reading a small Qurãn which is hidden away each time the train stops) looks worried. Gupta Cha walks up to the old man among them and says something, then summons a railway guard and takes a brass T-shaped key from him and locks the door from inside. Silent glances are exchanged. One of the women starts to weep. Ummi walks over and sits with her for the rest of the overnight journey.

We reach Bombay, safely. Or, at least half the train does. The second half has been de-linked in some ambush somewhere. I piece this together from hushed conversations. A lot of the luggage, too, is gone. Abbu Jan informs us that many compartments are chalk-marked 'MT'. I wonder for hours what 'MT' could mean, before realizing that he said 'empty'. My uncle and aunt lose nothing, though. All their stuff arrives safely, including their gramaphone and large record collection.

Ummi has just a small trunk of clothes that's been in the carriage with us. I tow an empty army-issue bistarband ("because it's Abi's!") and a small but heavy trunk with a couple of toys, a plate that I cherish to this day (it's segmentation seemed almost satirical years later in the wake of the 3-way partition, so it got dubbed among us cousins, who often fought to eat in it, the Partition Plate), a few small books, and the latest Khilona magazine. There are also 3 records (wrapped safely in a towel): a children's song by someone about a Dahi ba∂ay vaali, Omkarnath Ji's Kedam kee chhaya, and Caruso's La donna è mobile (all of which I loved listening to, every opportunity I got, to the bemusement of my elders).

Ummi and I are expecting to see all our stuff in Delhi, soon. I can't wait to get to our asli gramaphone, the one in our drawing room, with the huge golden horn ... and the strangely intriguing machine that Abi has inherited from his mother, one that plays music off amberol cylinders, of which we only have 4 (they are never touched, except when I plead really hard for listening to one of them). I am mesmerized as I hear and watch those cylinders that seem somehow more magical than the black records.

We meet Abi and find out that the house in Karolbagh has been looted and burnt. "My toys and the cylinders, too?", I ask, worried. But Ummi is now sobbing uncontrollably and no one is in the mood to answer my silly question. Soon, I cry, too, as Abi tells us more about the house. Although I am sure I did not really understand much, I do glean that our landlord, Rauf sahab, has been kidnapped and presumed killed. His wife - who was visiting someone else at that time - is missing.

Jump briefly to a scene ahead: 4 years later, we discover Mrs. Rauf in Karachi. Abi finds and recognizes her at a Police Station near Guru Mandir, where he is called "to sedate a mad woman". She had travelled across with other relations, we learn later from the people who come to 'claim' her back, and has gone raving mad over the years.)

Abi tells us he has spoken with senior persons in the congress party, specially Dr. Syed Mahmud (Nuzhat's maternal grandfather), a close friend and associate of Pandit Nehru.
Naana Jaan (as we called him) was much loved an admired by Abi, who had dedicated his book of essays and stories - Naee Paud - a few years earlier to him in remembrance of the student days at Aligarh when Nana Jan was a greatly admired activist.

Everyone has advised that we head out to Pakistan and return 'once the dust has settled'. (Vazira Zamindar's excellent book, The Long Partition, indicates that not only did many feel this way but some, in fact, did return to their old homelands**). I am stumped today, as I think back, at the naivete of all the Congress and Muslim League leaders, none of whom seemed to have had any inkling of the level of tragedy that this act of separation - still debated within our own country (and criticized, without even an attempt at understanding the reasons, in India) - would assume.

(To be continued ...)

* If you want a link from where you can download a wonderful audio file of Naushad's recollections of Saigal (well worth hearing), email me.

**POSTSCRIPT: Added 19th October 8:00 AM

I just came across some comments by a Mr. Ali Dada (Ref: Oct 18, 6.04PM) on the ATP site where this post has been included by its editors. While I have responded to his other bits at that site, I do wish to clarify one thing here because - judging by his conclusion - I did not, obviously, come across clearly enough on this one point: My reference to 'going back' was not only about people who crossed this way going back to India but something that took place in both countries after partition. (Mr. Dada obviously did not notice that I had said "return to their old homelands".) In fact the process was also ‘officially supported’ for a while on both sides of the border. Newspaper ads and other evidence, including some stats, for this are offered in Ms Zamindar’s book.

*** Another update (October 22nd) as a result of a comment by Gopi on ATP - and also pointed out in two emails.

First, Gopi: ... Such an interesting piece. Incidenally, the Zaibunnissa Street in Karachi is named after Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah, the firebrand editor of the Mirror who gave such a hard time to Ayub Khan in the last years of his presidentship. She was an Anglo-Indian (Bengali father and British mother) but married into a Punjabi family. Check out [this].

My response on AT: @Gopi - Thanks for the Zaibunnisa 'correction'. I know that was what was proposed and has been recorded by many. However, when some people raised an objection to naming it after her and said that her friends and family had 'pulled strings' to have this done, the authorities responded by pulling Priness Zaibunnisa out of their hat :-) ... but I guess your version, since it is now supported by Wikipedia, stands.

Full Circle

Around 40 years ago, a couple of years before we were married, I introduced Nuzhat to the Sellar & Yeatman classic, 1066 & All That - a book I had discovered in Abi's library and had spent hours ROTFL.

As I mentioned - in an earlier post (where there are links to some interesting aspects of it) - the book was lost and I had been unable to find a copy.

In 2005 a 75th Anniversary edition was published and sold out pretty fast. So I missed it again. And while Amazon did offer some used copies through affiliates, I wanted a spanking crispy new book. Another printing had been promised and I have been eagerly awaiting the announcement.

Last week Nuzhat walked miles in Edinburgh, looking for it in numerous bookshops, and found possibly the last available copy in that city. What a birthday and homecoming gift!

While the book is more likely to appeal to those familiar with British History (which is what my generation studied), there are several things in it that are timeless, such as this analysis.

If Apostasy didn't carry a (disputed) Death Penalty

... I'd have switched to FSMism and become a Pastafarian. Yes, that's not a typo. I said Pastafarian!

Who, after all, can resist such clear-headed thinking as that of Bobby Henderson, Founder and Prophet of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Gospel of FSM, which Bobby also authored at the peak of the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debates, is one of the most hilarious spoofs of the generally unspoofable. Here's an excerpt from the section Towards a New Science:

... [S]houldn't we endeavor to give scientists the largest collection of tools possible? No one is saying that they have to apply a supernatural explanation to any particular phenomenon. Only that the supernatural be available if nothing else works, or if it is convenient for deceptive political purposes. And remember, this is not a radical new idea. In terms of years in use, supernatural science - SuperScience if you will - has the edge on conventional science. Conventional, or empirical, science has been in use for only a few hundred years. Obviously there must be a reason supernatural science lasted so long, before this empirical-science fad began. Could it be that supernatural science is more productive than empirical science?

For those skeptics demanding evidence in support of such a seemingly outlandish assumption, the Gospel offers many examples. Here's one!

The book is hilarious - but, not too deep under the surface, it offers a scathing criticism of the kind of crap that the ID proponents resort to. What else, after all, would you expect from a book that starts with this disclaimer:

The Shards of Memory

Among the books that I almost always have at hand - copies of a couple of them are occasionally spotted in the office, in the car, in the loo, even in my travel bag on long trips - is one called Sarodé Ghalib, a collection of Mirza Sahab's couplets compiled by Yusuf Bukhari Dehlavi. It is indexed by theme/topic - a tricky and never totally 'complete-able' task as people continue to find new meanings and shades in his verses that existing indexes have not considered. Such re-interpretations are natural for a work about which many concur with a thought expressed by Ghalib himself - Aatay haeñ ghaeb say yeh mazaameeñ khayaal mayñ -  a view that adds even more dimensions to each phrase and reference.

Along with Aziz-ur-Rahman Sahab's 8-volume(!) Ilmé Majlisee (my 12th birthday gift from Ummi, who purchased it from Kitab Mahal - Qizilibash Chacha's unforgettable bookshop that was an institution in Karachi), it serves well as a reference book when one needs a shayree quotation, specially in these days of rapidly failing memory.

Today, as I mourn with many of you the passing of Ahmad Faraz, Sarodé Ghalib takes on a special significance as it was given to me by him in 1969 - on the occasion of Ghalib's 100th death anniversary - and bears on its first page, at my request, the 3 shayrs that I had first heard Faraz recite. (The reference in the couplets is to the 'de-throning' of the great dictator, Ayub Khan.)

Rest in Peace, Faraz. I can only modify your words and say: Ham ko ghamé hastee bhi gavaara tha keh tüm thay ...

And now hear this ...

A couple of years ago a visiting friend (who has asked to remain anonymous) played me a 'boot-leg' copy of a speech. As far as I could make out - the recording was an excerpt that was missing the beginning an the ending - the theme was was Liberal Education . It was a delightful lecture and I always wished we could have heard the whole thing. Unfortunately, we knew not where the speech was given nor, even more of a plight, who the speaker was ... such is the tragedy of poorly pirated material ;-) I even took a sentence or two from the speech, at random, and tried to Google it ... but nothing was found at that time.

Last week I was gifted "The Philosophy of Religion", a course recorded by Professor John Hall for The Teaching Company (TTC). Impressed by the simple lucidity and tone of the very first of the 36 lectures), I searched for him on the internet and was delighted to be led to his homepage, which, in turn, led me to the Convocation Address delivered by him at The University of Richmond in 2005. And that's the one we'd heard!

While I suggest that you download and read the entire lecture (it's only 3 pages long), along with the Collegian piece, I would like to quote one of its sections here with permission from Professor Hall.

Liberal Education and Impracticality

One of the hallmarks of liberal education is that it is does not have immediate applications, results, or investment returns. This is what people mean when they say that it is impractical. But is liberal education really impractical?

If the desired outcome of schooling is job-skill, then Strayer would be the model school. My wrestling with the ambiguities of Ionesco, studying the complexities of natural selection, trying to figure out what the American Civil War was really about, and exploring the mathematics of musical key transposition, are not likely to increase the GNP or lower the CPI overnight, if at all. On the other hand, my learning to keyboard data into a computer, take accurate telephone messages, keep a double-entry ledger, and figure profit margins, might. Indeed, I could measurably increase my disposable income simply by addressing envelopes at home in my spare time. (Many matchbook covers tell me so, and I believe them.) But who will write the programs for me to keyboard? Who will leave a message worth my taking down? Who will create the business that needs me to keep its books? Who will invent a product that will generate profits for me to calculate? Indeed, who will create something worthwhile to put in the envelopes I address?

For individuals and their communities to thrive, people need to know more than the answers to familiar questions. They need to know what questions to ask, and that means that they need to be inventive enough to come up with new ones. They need to be able to make judgments without bright-line criteria, and that means that they must be able to wrestle with ambiguity without having a panic attack. They need to be able to make informed political decisions, and that means that they need to understand historical connections and the difference between appearance and reality. And they need to be able to function in a complex society that divides its labor, which means that they need to have some understanding of what everyone else is doing, even if they don’t have to do everything everyone else does themselves.

And this is where a liberal education is most liberating. By freeing us from the expectation of an immediate payoff for each thing we learn or do, it opens us up to learn and do things that, while they may lack an immediate payoff, may have long-term potentials that we cannot even imagine in advance. This is why a highly placed corporate officer once told me “when we want worker bees, send us trained technicians; but when we want leadership send us people who have studied history and literature and science. We can train new hires to run the machinery if we need to; but we are not equipped to teach them how to use their minds.” So the “impracticality” of liberal education is not necessarily impractical at all. By allowing students to go beyond job training, it encourages them to stretch themselves to the absolute limit of their potentials and, unhampered by external or artificial constraints, to be flexible and to grow.

[I am not sure if the good professor will be willing to talk to a T2F audience in far away Pakistan via Skype - but I'd love for him to spend a few minutes with us during a Science Ka Adda evening on another topic he enjoys: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.]

I had, very recently, finished listening on my iPod - overflowing with several audiobooks and brilliant podcasts - to Professor Esposito delivering his balanced and very informative TTC lectures on Islam (as a part of The World's Great Religions series). The Philosophy of Religion course promises to be an even more enjoyable learning experience.

The range of subjects that TTC courses cover is extremely vast. I wish Dr Atta ur Rahman (HEC) or Dr Naveed Malik (VU) would strike a deal with those guys and make several of these courses available locally at subsidized rates. I'd be willing to enroll, even at my age (and with the way I feel about educational institutions), in a college to take advantage of such a deal, if it was required.

Postscript: Lest some of you worry, no, I am not about to be 'born again'. Religion has always been a subject of great interest to me and the current revival (in its worst forms, I might add) and its political impact, globally, has just re-kindled that. But next on my course list - if I can raise the money (HEC/VU are unlikely to even consider this one) - is Professor Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. 48 lectures of 45 minutes each. I can't stop drooling.

The Twain Meet

Waiting for Professor Aslam Farrukhi to show up for what became, in his delightful retelling, a grand - almost visual - tour of Karachi, 1947, I was fortunate to be to be at the same table as Yusufi Sahab, who, with just 4 books pubished, is arguably the finest writer of Urdu prose today. 

Apologizing for a really pita hua question, I asked him whom he read and was influenced by. I am not sure what name[s] I expected ... but without a moment's pause he surprised me by saying "Mark Twain", which - in retrospect - doesn't seem so odd. He also went on (with almost childish awe) to describe his recent visit to Twain's hometown and the house he lived in.

I hope that T2F will, one day, be honoured by an evening of Yusufi Sahab's readings. How we'll accommodate the hundreds that will turn up, I don't know. Guess that's reason enough to increase the space, Sab ;-)

As a possible result of our colonization, older readers in this part of the world were traditionally more familiar with writers from Britain, as compared to those from the USA, a legacy they passed on via textbooks and home libraries to their young. Over the years, the one good thing to emerge from the Americanization of Everything, is that we have all become familiar with several new and powerful authors from the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, one has to look really hard for good British, non-desi authors in our bookshops!

However, Samuel Longhorn Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is still not as commonly read in this part of the world as he should be. Here's a piece by him that is as relevant today (and to us) as when it was first published as part of a short story.

O Lord, Our Father

by Mark Twain

O Lord, our father, 

Our young patriots, idols of our hearts, 

Go forth to battle - be Thou near them! 

With them, in spirit, we also go forth 

From the sweet peace of our beloved firesides

To smite the foe.

O Lord, our God, 

Help us to tear their soldiers 

To bloody shreds with our shells; 

Help us to cover their smiling fields 

With the pale forms of their patriot dead;

Help us to drown the thunder of the guns

With the shrieks of their wounded, 

Writhing in pain.

Help us to lay waste their humble homes 

With a hurricane of fire; 

Help us to wring the hearts of their 

Unoffending widows with unavailing grief;

Help us to turn them out roofless 

With their little children to wander unfriended

The wastes of their desolated land 

In rags and hunger and thirst, 

Sports of the sun flames of summer 

And the icy winds of winter, 

Burdened in spirit, worn with travail, 

Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, 

Blast their hopes, 

Blight their lives, 

Protract their bitter pilgrimage, 

Make heavy their steps, 

Water their way with their tears, 

Stain the white snow with the blood 

Of their wounded feet!

We ask it in the spirit of love - 

Of Him who is the source of love, 

And Who is the ever-faithful 

Refuge and Friend of all that are sore beset

And seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen!

Looking Back / Looking Ahead

Prof. Niaz Zaman (of Dhaka) and the multifaceted Asif Farrukhi (of Karachi) have jointly edited Fault Lines, a book of excellent short stories centred around 1971. Many of these stories were translated from Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English for this publication from Bangladesh, now available at T2F courtesy OUP.

Along with respected Urdu writer Intizar Husain - flown in from Lahore by T2F to attend the launch of the book in Pakistan and a later evening to be devoted to his writings, alone - both Editors, whose own stories also appear in the collection, were present on the evening of the 11th May for an event that was the first of a series of happenings to celebrate T2F's birthday. 

Reading Fault Lines was not easy for me, partly because it brought back so much to mind. Actually, the very first time I opened it to a page at random, I was confronted by a few lines that made me put the book down, numbed.

"Baby, there's blood on your finger. Did you hurt yourself?"

"No ... I did not hurt myself", the little girl says.

"Okay, but let me wash it away."

"NO! I won't let you wash it! It's my mother's blood."

It took me a few days to muster enough courage to start reading it again. And those opening lines from Masood Ashar's Versions of Truth still haunt me.

While Bangladeshi writing is full of references, in works of fact and fiction, to those horrible days Pakistani prose has been very skimpy on the subject - with the occasional story sometimes being treated allegorically (e.g., Forklift 352 by Asad Mohammad Khan - included in this book and read out in the original Urdu by him at the launch). Admittedly, references in poetry from Faiz, Jalib, Faraz and others have been more direct.

The question that is often asked - and was brought up again that evening - is how/why did people in 'West' Pakistan "let it happen" and "not raise a voice". The stock answer has been "We did not know..." (an answer that was also partly supported by Shuja Nawaz during my interview of him about his intriguing book, more about which later in this post). So, Muneeza Shamsie's statement "We knew - and said so to others. But nobody wanted to hear..." came as a twist that led to numerous discussions within smaller groups after the event. (One of many interesting discussions on 1971 by today's youth has been also triggered through Jamash's coverage of the launch.)

There were, as was to be expected, conflicting views. While most of the audience generally felt that the Army had been brutal, there were still a few - including a conscientious objector from the armed forces who had refused to fight and returned to 'West' Pakistan - who believed that events before the 'army action' (what a mild euphemism for a bloody genocide!) had reached a pinnacle with the merciless killings of Biharis (someone suggesting a figure of ten thousand in a single incident). It was this, they held, that had resulted in the violent (though regrettable) reaction of the Army. Khalid Ahmad, of stage and TV fame, was not willing to buy this and countered with an argument: If the lives of Biharis were so important, why has Pakistan not ever considered accepting their repatriation? The reasons, he felt, were entirely different and pre-planned. This view was partially reinforced when Prof. Niaz - a Punjabi who lives in Dhaka with her Bengali husband and, thus, with access to the thinking of both sides - said that contacts in the army had told her, well before that tragic March, that war was on the cards and preparation were in full swing.

•

Will the truth ever be known? The question falsely assumes that there is one single truth. There are, always, several truths - and glimpses of them are found in books safely labeled as Fiction. Truths are rarely, if ever, found in History, which, as Will Durant (and who can be considered more qualified to make a statement on the subject?) says, is 9/10th conjecture and 1/10th bias.

•

Having very close contacts in the army is one of the advantages that Shuja Nawaz holds over many others. His easy access to the military top brass adds dimensions to his research generally not found in other analyses.

A seasoned journalist and member of several Think Tanks in the USA, where he lives, Shuja Nawaz has recently authored Crossed Swords — Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within, a book that is making waves everywhere even before the launch. Internationally, leading publications are showing exceptional interest in talking to him and in reprinting extracts from the book. A big launch is scheduled in Delhi soon. In Pakistan, the media is battling for time with him to conduct one-to-one interviews during the 2 days he is in Karachi.

OUP is holding a large launch on the 15th - which is also T2F's birthday and where we hope you'll join us on one or more of the sessions scheduled - but, for a more intimate (albeit brief) conversation with Shuja, you can come to T2F on the 16th. If you buy a copy of the book at T2F you will also get a free Audio CD of an interview I conducted with him over Skype.

I am not usually interested in reading books about the Army but, I admit, I couldn't put this one down. The breadth of its scope is matched by its depth - a rare occurrence, indeed. To younger readers I would certainly recommend it strongly since it spans the entire history of the country and is filled with 'inner' anecdotes. You can hear two clips from the interview here: One deals with the MQM and General Asif Nawaz (Shuja's brother, whose controversial death - or was it murder? - is also dealt with in the book). The other shows his current state of optimism.

Excerpts from my interview on other topics, including Kargil, can be heard on the OUP website. Such additions make the book much more interesting than the drab text books that turn Pakistan Studies into an almost detestable subject for many.

On a related note, Shuja Nawaz has been following the dynamic blogging community in Pakistan and has expressed a desire to meet some of its members during his visit. So, fellow Karachi bloggers, do come! 16th / 7 PM. Be on time ... he only has an hour in his very hectic schedule.

Absolut Joy!

You deserve a really big round of

SABEEN

§

Also, a big

THANK YOU

to

EVERYONE

who helped

make it happen.

Zeeshan Sahil - Lonely no more!

An Evening with Zeeshan Sahil was the event that

launched T2F. Only last week he'd called to say

that he'd be glad to do another reading

there ... and I began thinking of an

event for T2F's first birthday

that would bring him and

other Urdu poets

together.

Yesterday

Asif Farrukhi's call

shattered me completely.

Zeeshan's voice had suddenly been stilled!

He will be missed by everyone

who came into contact with him or

knew him through his verses and books.

Most of all, he will be missed by his love: Karachi.

Only a few days ago,

Fatima Bhutto,

wrote this.

Zeeshan Sahil, an Urdu poet once wrote of our city, our home, "It is a lie that in Karachi, after the rain, the sprouting grass doesn’t have blades deep green and soft. Or that the trees do not give shade without the help of clouds … With us in Karachi live birds who fly from trees through the sound of bullets and bombs; perch on walls; always they gather somewhere to pray. Our books don’t wait inside cupboards for termites. Now our hearts swim these seas where once our eyes searched for golden flowers and our hands tear down the walls that once buried us alive". This, like the calling of Sahil’s birds, is a prayer for us and for our city, our home. Let us await the day that our hands tear down those walls; it won’t be long.

Amen!